Anger gets you no-where except a referral to the lunny bin.

I need to expel all the overwhelming lunacy that perpetrated my day onto something objective, so I turned to here, to my blog, to the only healthy coping strategy I seem to possess. I don't even know if I will post this, or keep it as a draft, just an arbitrary exercise to rid my big BPD head of the emotions which churn and mangle my thoughts.

I had my INDIVIDUAL session with my DBT therapist this afternoon. It was only when I was waiting for her in the lounge of  the clinic that I noticed how grumpy I was. I was frowning and gritting my teeth and really quite narky. I didn't have enough time to figure out what the route cause for my agitation was as I was minutes away from therapy so I just tried (read FAILED) to push it away as I didn't want to waste a session on  what I felt to be an unnecessary topic. Well, boy was I mistaken for thinking I could just will it away that easily.

Within minutes of the session the elephant in the room was not only noticed but pulled out by the tusks and made to take center stage. T:"whats going on right now?"All I wanted to do was scream at her. Me: "what do you mean?" now  I was screaming at her, well in my head anyway. "SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME THE F*^% ALONE!" I can only imagine that I looked like an cartoon character, you know the one where where they turn red and steam starts coming out their ears.....

It was clear I was in no mood for therapy, and thank God she realized this and moved swiftly on to discussing what the DBT process calls THERAPY INTERFERING BEHAVIORS. I call it being stubborn and headstrong. Its the ultimate no-no in DBT. She asked me about the plans I had to end my life I had mentioned in an Email, and I point blank refused to talk to her. I picked a point on the carpet and simply stared at it praying that she would just give in and ask me something else. I knew I was being childish, but it was the only thing I could do to stop me from storming out of the stuffy office in a huff and making a holy show of myself.

We sat in silence for a while longer until she pointed out that I had agreed to at least give DBT a shot, and that not saying anything was not participating. I was shaking all over now, gone beyond the point where I might cry and was just plain mad. I didn't care anymore. I told her I wished I had never said anything to her about suicide, and that I felt like I couldn't be honest with her anymore if this was how she was going to react. (and I wonder why BPD has such a bad name....) I was being a bitch.

I do get her point. I mean I can't expect the skills to work if I ain't willing to give them a shot first. This includes staying alive long enough to learn them. So after the fickle silence, we agreed that my lack of structure and routine is not helping my mental health at the moment. Which is very true. Then she landed the shocker on me....

She was referring me to the hospital and wanted me to do the 'center for living' program. This is ultimately a babysitting service for the emotionally challenged, run by possibly the most invalidating health care workers known to this planet. I mean the nurses are straight out of the old Victorian asylum era, where they think that shoving drugs down your throat to keep you quite and throwing patronizing advise about sleep and diet at you will cure you enough to get you back out the door for another few months. They expect to see you again at some stage. Recovery is simply not in there limited vocabulary. 

I have no choice in the matter, so for the next few days until they can organize themselves, I am a 'danger to myself' and must check in with the nurse on call every morning. So much for a life worth living......

Where are my VALUES!

I really just need to get the jumbled mess of craziness out of my head. I feel like I am simply existing, not for myself, not for any purpose but simply roller-coasting through life. I feel so empty and scared. Of what? I have no clue. I am just afraid of life in general.

The fear really started after SKILLS GROUP on Tuesday. We are still (read my frustration) doing EMOTION REGULATION. And this week the group focused on CREATING A LIFE WORTH LIVING.   The exercise we were doing is about LONG TERM ACCUMULATING POSITIVE EXPERIENCES. I guess I find it hard to see the point in building a positive life when I have very little hope of ever achieving said life. Its like I am doing it for someone else and not myself, hence why I feel like I am just enduring this prevailing hopelessness. It makes ending my life seem like a really god option right now.

The specific exercise I am talking about which scared me out of my semi functioning state is IDENTIFYING PERSONAL VALUES AND GOALS. I was presented with a horribly long list of equally vague and ambiguous list of values from which to choose from. It was hugely overwhelming. I stared at it for far too long. Which in its self made me uneasy. I mean, who doesn't know what their own personal values are? It compounded my feeling of inundated failure.

After ALLOT of pondering, head scratching, and a whole individual session given over to this exercise, I still had a horrible lump of fear in my throat. I am still so afraid that I have no values. Surely I need to know these. Will they become more apparent as time goes on? How do I know?

Needless to say I had to switch to DISTRESS TOLERANCE MODE all this week, namely the CONTRIBUTE part of ACCEPTs. I have been spending time getting to know my wee cousins again. Its keeping me out of trouble. Stopping me from ending this void and valueless life of mine.

Has anyone else had this experience? How did they get through the emptiness it brings up?

Giving up

I always dwell on the most negative. They say that we human beings are programmed to survive and to overcome and forget pain in time. Not me. The times when I feel grief and emotional distress are the memories which stick with me the longest. This week has gone by so slow, its agonizing sitting and waiting for this wave to die out.

All I keep thinking about is how I am unable to keep going on with DBT. It is exhausting me. I simply can't keep it up anymore. But I am afraid to give up totally just yet, so there must be something inside me willing to keeping pushing past this horrible disorder. I have been making endless amounts of PROS AND CONS list about it. I fought so hard to get into the program, and I know how lucky I am to have even been considered for treatment in Ireland. There are others here literary dying to get this level of support. Yet I wonder if it is the right thing for me, maybe it just is not the right time, perhaps it simply worn't work for me.

I know I have improved since starting this journey, but not enough for the tremendous effort that it involves. It is too hard and I am too exhausted. Then there are all the people I would be letting down if I were to simply give up on yet another thing in my life - My parents, my employers, my partner, my friends, my therapist, my doctor, my readers of this blog, my housemates and all the well wishers. I don't want to let them see me fail, again! So for now, I will try my hardest to battle through this, one second at a time.

Panicked and afraid

I came out of my one to one therapy session yesterday feeling utterly ashamed of myself. I am a fraud, a fake, an undistinguished manipulator, who's sole aim is to gain attention and pity from those who are only trying to help me. I can't cope with life. My miserable and  shameful life. I have no clue who I am, and the scary thing is that don't think I want to find out. I am terrified that when I find out who I am, I won't like the real me.

It's better to be unwell, and use that excuse to explain my horrible personality than to accept that ultimately this may be who I am and that I choose to behave the way I do. I am so afraid of myself.

I found myself calling a suicide hotline last night and wondering if I would ever have the courage to go through with it, but I am too weak. That is the conclusion I came to, that my drive is there, but I am to scared to really go through with it. Its like a marathon runner who has trained for their entire life for a big race. The have the ability and the drive to run, but the day before they break their foot and can't go through with it because they physically can't.

Today I panicked again. I need answers to the hazy questions circulating in my mind. I didn't go to work and instead festered in bed with my unwashed thoughts.  I don't care about anything. I didn't even pick up my social welfare payment this week. I am back to thinking about starvation and attention seeking.

I called my Doctors office not to long ago knowing full well that my therapist was out of the office today and couldn't call me back. Now I am waiting for a call back from some randomer and I have no clue what to tell them about why I called. All I know is that my insides are screaming in silent agony with confusion and guilt and that I am terrified of myself.

Why did I call? It was an instinctual reaction to the emotional pain. My head wants me to be devious and secretive yet also wants to let others know when I am hurting too. As if by sharing the hurt that it will somehow soften it and justify its reality. But the instant I open my mouth it won't let me explain it in a way that gets me any help.

Oh I am not making much sense I know, and I am also well aware that this blog has taken a radical turn from recovery to something much more dark and disturbing and I really am sorry about that.

Just off the phone with the on-call doctor there. He was nice, but detached and was reading my notes as we spoke. We agreed that I must put in place my distress tolerance skills and reminded me that these feelings rarely last... so in the words of Marsha.... I must ride the wave of the emotion.... I fucking hate surfing. Could never stand up on the board and always got thrown off into the white thunderous water. But she tends to be more wise than me when I am feeling like this so I'm off to self soothe in a hot shower and wash away the dirt of my anxiety, then I will paint my nails and paint a half smile on my face in order to ride out this period. 

Prozac Mind

Oh wow, what an odd week this has been. Trepidation and deregulation have burdened my mind with troublesome thoughts, causing me to suspend life and live apprehensively, awaiting some unforeseen dreadful event. The sensation lies deep in my thoracic cavity, somewhere between my heart and soul, like a boil ready to burst and spread its nasty disease to all unlucky enough to be nearby. 

My family are worried, heck my WISE MIND is worried too, but at both ends of the pole, the two destructive EMOTION/RATIONAL MINDS are at war. Devoid of emotion my RATIONALITY states that “all is lost, there is no hope, no-one wants you around, and no-one even likes, let alone loves your fat ass!” With that spurring it on, my EMOTIONS are loaded to attack and pounce on an opportunity to destroy myself with all the vigor and drive needed to succeed. So what’s stopping me? 

My exhaustion is. I have barely made it out of bed all week, too afraid to even go to the kitchen or bathroom for fear that something will happen, afraid of others and ashamed that they might see me this way. Surface to say, food is not high on my agenda. I haven’t eaten a real meal for days, and I am scared at the all too familiar glory I feel from my hunger pains. “Success!” whispers my ED in a snaky slighter of a voice! “Keep it up and soon you won’t feel anything except thinness and happiness!”

As long as I can stop myself from binging I think I will be ok, just until I see my Consultant on Monday and therapist then too. Just have to keep myself safe and out of the kitchen, away from temptation. Restricting is less destructive for me than binging and purging.

The dose of Prozac (20mg) makes me nauseas anyway so eating is not all that appealing to me right now, Add the intense anxiety I feel and a weak stomach is an understatement. Food repulses me at the moment. Long may it last!

Beautiful Suicide **Trigger**

I want a beautiful suicide
Where the night skies are dark
And the stars shine brightly
Yes tonight I’ll make my mark

I want a beautiful suicide
With a knife next to me
Alone in a room
How good will this be

I want I beautiful suicide
I’d already planned
Alone in silence
Nothing could be more grand

I want a beautiful suicide
I’ll have to no longer life this life
No hurt or pain
All it takes is a knife

Do I want a beautiful suicide?
I don’t think I could die
Come to think of it
It’ll make others cry

I don't want a beautiful suicide
I’ll no longer commit
I’ll just mend what’s wrong
That was stupid I admit

FACTORS REDUCING INTERPERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

Get out of my head!

In the wise words of DBT's creator Dr. M. Linehan; 

"The less you know, the more you worry, the worse you feel, the more you can't decide what to do, the more ineffective your are, the more you worry...

The more you experience non-giving, authoritarian environments, the more you worry, the less you practice, the less you know, the worse you feel, the more you can't decide what to do, and so on.."

This post has been more than a little bit difficult for me to write. I have scoured the internet looking for others views on this topic and came up with nothing except confusion. You see, I am ashamedly, immensely self limiting when it comes to my interpersonal relations. This is mostly due to my crippling inability to be NON-JUDGMENTAL. The resounding tone from the group today when introduced to this module with FACTORS REDUCING INTERPERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS, was an echo-chamber of the like-minded, nodding heads and understanding smiles.

Of the five factors covered; LACK OF SKILL, WORRY THOUGHTS, EMOTIONS, INDECISION, ENVIRONMENT, I feel that the one which stands out is clearly WORRY THOUGHTS for me. 

I am always worrying about what others think of me, how I look. "Do I fit in?" "Am I acting right?" "They wish I wasn't here" "They would rather not talk to me". These thoughts distract me from being able to met the social demands of an interpersonal situation.

Mr. Worry!

Another way that I feel my judgments impede my ability with regards to dealing with people, is what I think about others. I am very quick to generalize people based on very little information! I suppose this is the diagnostic criteria of black and white thinking rearing its nasty head. When someone comes out with something I deem unattractive, I am altogether too quick to totally write them off. One acquaintance recently came out with;  "Children are so annoying!". We were in Starbucks, and the local toddle waddle team had set up base beside us. Making lots of noise and very distracting. All of a sudden, I was dismissing my friend and blanking on all her great qualities. All I could think about was, how awful a person she was for saying that. "What a horrible person she must be if she doesn't like children!". I let my judgments get in the way of having a good time and a nice chat. I was stand-offish for the rest of the time we spent together. I short. I wasn't very personally effective! 

What happens when I have a judgment about someone is that I then search for proof of it. I look for ways that that person then conforms to my judgment, and I ignore ways that he or she doesn’t conform. I build a case for my perception and create a story about that person, which then interferes with my reacting purely and simply and EFFECTIVELY in the moment to that individual. My ideas and story get in the way of seeing the whole truth about that person. Furthermore, my reactions to him or her are bound to be quite negative when the story is a negative one, whether I am conscious of that or not. What happens when I feel negative or react negatively to someone? Usually, I get a negative response back, which reinforces my negative feelings. I don’t realize the part I played in creating that negativity. If you were being judged, or even just sensing the negativity behind an unspoken judgment, how likely is it that you will feel positively toward someone and act accordingly? Judgment produces judgment, while love produces love. 

The trouble I see with judgments is that they keep me from connecting withothers. They maintain a sense of separation because what I am judging is the fact that I or the other person is different from me or different from an idea or ideal I hold: either myself or he or she “should” be this way or that way.

I am looking forward to learning how to get past these factors, and with Christmas fast approaching, the timing couldn't be better!

'Participation' Is Torture

This week we have been set the goal of in incorporating the 'What' Skill (from the Mindfulness module) PARTICIPATION into our everyday lives. Thing is, with every good intention of being a diligent member of DBT group therapy, I made a plan. But annoyingly, I keep forgetting to fully participate in a task in order to be mindful to my experiences. 

"I used to think mindfulness is some form of passive observation… it is NOT passive.  In fact, mindfulness requires you to be both the participant and the observer simultaneously.  In this way, you are the observer of your experience at the same time as you are the experience itself.  As thoughts, feelings, and sensations naturally arise, they arise with the same vessel that observes them.Mindfulness is not a denial of your experience and a retreat into nothing but detached observation.  It is a type of open observation that is experiencing that which it is observing." Laura Schenck MA

Some skills from DBT are like little treats for the soul, while others are more akin to TORTURE! This is one of them. When you are fully awake to an experience you have actively spent a good proportion of your life trying to avoid, it is not a nice experience to then have to be aware of all the unpleasantness.

Does that make sense? I can't seem to explain what I mean in the way I want to. For example, a way I have tried to incorporate participation into my life this week, is to fully engage in eating. I really tried hard to experience every morsel of food. To taste the differences between sweet, bitter and salt. I noticed the variances in temperature and texture. Then I switched from external stimuli to the internal. To my thoughts, judgments and emotions.

Here is where the problem with this skill arose for me. No matter how hard I concentrated on noticing my thoughts, there was a strong resistance to participate in the task any longer. It was too hard to observe, then describe, then participate with eating when my head was screaming floods of guilt. 'Fat cow' 'You have no self control' 'You will be alone forever' 'This is what you deserve, fatness and unhappiness' .... 

This skill needs practice I think. And its not what I want to do. Its hard and annoying, but I guess if I was to pull from another skill, and weighed up the pros and cons, is it harder to live with an eating disorder or to just practice this skill?